The Chargers announced Wednesday that Hunter Henry has another serious knee injury, a tibial plateau fracture.
It's the same injury that J.J. Watt suffered in Week 5 of 2017. As part of the initial reporting, Watt was already confirmed to be headed to IR and out for the remainder of the season. That's interesting when also considering this report from Adam Schefter that the Chargers "have thought" something more along a 4-6 week timeline.
I'm no expert on whether the severity of this injury can fluctuate, but that seems to be the indication we're getting from the team, unless there's more to read into Schefter's wording. Because this is all we have to work off of, you likely have to hold Henry until we know more. If he winds up on short-term IR, there's an argument to consider releasing him, especially in shallower leagues.
What it means for the Chargers
As we know, the Chargers were without Henry for the entire 2018 season. That caused their positional target distributions to shift substantially last year, as tight ends were targeted just 14.5% of the time, down from rates over 20% in both 2016 and 2017. Many of those targets shifted over to the running backs, who saw 27.5% of the total targets in 2018 after 22.6% in 2017 and 18.3% in 2016.
Henry was very involved in Week 1, running routes on 82% of Phillip Rivers' dropbacks, second most on the team behind Keenan Allen. His five targets were third on the team behind Allen and Austin Ekeler, and Henry caught four balls for 60 yards. Virgil Green, the No. 2 tight end behind Henry, is viewed as more of a blocker. Green ran a route on just 23% of Rivers' dropbacks in Week 1, and in 2018 he was targeted just 27 times all season while Antonio Gates was the primary pass-catching tight end with 45 targets.
If Henry misses substantial time — if we get an updated timeline sounding more like Watt's than Schefter's initial report — it's possible we hear about Gates making yet another return. Either way, it's unlikely that any Chargers tight end is Fantasy-viable while Henry is off the field. No. 3 tight end Sean Culkin has an even weaker pass-catching pedigree than Green with one career NFL catch and only 61 for 601 yards across his 28-game college career at Missouri.
Complicating things, Mike Williams also suffered a Week 1 knee injury, and his status is unclear. Behind Williams, Nos. 3 and 4 wide receivers Dontrelle Inman and Travis Benjamin each ran a route on about half of Rivers' dropbacks in Week 1. In last season's iteration of this offense, Tyrell Williams played a big role, but he's traveled up the coast and is the No. 1 for Oakland.
What this all means is a couple of things. First, Keenan Allen is in line to become an absolute target hog in the short-term, something he's been throughout his career anyway because he's an elite route-runner who seems to get open at will. But Rivers will need to lean on him more than ever. Second, Austin Ekeler, Justin Jackson and eventually Melvin Gordon — if he returns before Henry — would all be expected to see a bump in targets relative to already high expectations.
Then on top of that, you still need more people catches passes. Mike Williams, if healthy, would likely project for something like a 120-target full-season pace, at minimum, for any games Henry is out of the lineup. If Williams also misses time, there's a substantial role here for Inman in particular, who caught 58 balls on 97 targets for 810 yards for the then-San Diego Chargers back in 2016 in his best NFL season. Travis Benjamin would also likely see additional routes and targets, but he'd top out as a boom-or-bust deep threat; his skill set doesn't overlap well enough with what the Chargers would need, which is other short and intermediate options.
Inman is worth a speculative add in very deep leagues if you missed out on the Week 1 studs on waivers or they weren't available in your league. He could also be a viable DFS dart throw for GPPs if Williams misses time.
In terms of ranking him as an add, he'd be less appealing than pretty much any of the Week 1 stars, including Terry McLaurin, John Ross, Marquise Brown, A.J. Brown and several others. He's also less likely to make an impact if Mike Williams is indeed able to play in Week 2. But, in the short term, there is definitely an opportunity for him to have a couple of solid games.
Potential TE replacements
Here are some potential replacement options if you rostered Henry, ranked by priority and including some more obvious names if you're playing in a shallower league or your waivers haven't run yet.
- Darren Waller (75% owned at CBS) — There's really no excuse why Waller is not 100% yet, but if he's available in your league, he's the first choice and has the potential to return something close to what you were hoping for from Henry.
- Mark Andrews (79% owned) — Andrews tied for the most routes run for the Ravens in Week 1. The tight ends combined for 15 targets on 26 total pass attempts, so the tight end position still seems to be a Lamar Jackson favorite.
- T.J. Hockenson (87% owned) — The rookie's big Week 1 was promising, but he's behind Andrews and Waller on account of his offense, which certainly saw a play volume bump both due to playing Arizona and getting an overtime period.
- Jimmy Graham (63% owned) — Graham was solid in the Thursday night opener, catching a touchdown and even seeing a couple of downfield looks.
- Greg Olsen (48% owned) — Olsen was very involved in Week 1, and while his Week 2 status is up in the air, he looks like a solid option if healthy.
- Noah Fant (43% owned) — Hockenson took the rookie headlines, but Fant ran routes on 83% of Joe Flacco's Week 1 dropbacks and is a decent option to see more targets going forward.
- Chris Herndon (15% owned) — Herndon is a solid stash for anyone with long-term tight end issues after Adam Gase played each of his five starting skill position players at least 90% of the snaps in Week 1. He won't be back for four more weeks, and it's possible Henry has already returned by then, but Herndon's a high-upside longer-term option who would also require a bridge TE to pair with him if we get word Henry's recovery will be a longer timeline.
If you're in a deep league where these options are all unavailable, keep an eye on Jordan Reed's (61% onwed) health and whether he or Vernon Davis (8%) gets the Week 2 start, while Mike Gesicki (5%) might be a super deep option after he ran routes on 73% of the Dolphins' dropbacks in Week 1. But also, he plays for the Dolphins.
So who should you sit and start this week? And which surprising quarterback could lead you to victory? Visit SportsLine now to get Week 2 rankings for every position, plus see which QB is going to come out of nowhere to crack the top 10, all from the model that out-performed experts big time last season.